another gulf stream topic

By MountainManMike, on February 24th, 2008 at 12:31:28amClimatePatrol.comIndianapolis, IN

okay, so this has already probably been discussed at some scientific level but i was thinking...what if we have the whole theory behind the gulf stream wrong or at least part of it? what if it stops not because of fresh water being dumped into it from the north but because there is not enough energy being pumped into it in the south. maybe caused by a lack of sun spots and solar activity. what if it is caused by a lack of heat to push the waters northward? im no expert but this would see to explain a lot of the effects of it slowing down or turning off.

What if the gulf stream wasn’t driven by salinity and temperature but rather surface airflow?

I think he was talking temp and salinity and not air/surface flow. But temperature could be a driving force. I don’t think surface air would do all that much. If the sun stays off and doesn’t keep the heat pumping..I could see that causing the gulf stream to stall.

You may be on to something. No heat in the south….certainly….since the water cools up north and sinks…if the water temps were cool enough in the southern zone they would sink there stopping the flow or cooling things faster maybe?

speaking of oceans, what r the forecast for la nina? is it supposed to stick around through the summer? noaa is predicting warmer and drier than average for my area over the next 3 months but my prediction is cooler and im hoping for wetter/snowier conditions.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona — two prominent climate modellers — the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

“We missed what was right in front of our eyes,” says Prof. Russell. It’s not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind’s effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.